My husband and I did this. He had lost his job and needed to work so we sold our house and bought a bar/nightclub/restaurant. We were in our early thirties. We brought what was a failing business back from the dead and were pretty successful. We could only stand it for two years but we had several people who wanted to buy it. One night at 4:00 a.m. after we closed and were dead tired we were at a restaurant where we always went after closing and one of the buyers was there. We said do you want to buy it and he said yes and six weeks later it was over. I couldn't imagine doing this for longer than the two years. We did many things right but some things wrong. We had 21 employees and many of them taking full advantage of us. We did have a great time doing it. I couldn't imagine doing it at retirement age. You need a lot of stamina to put up with the hours and energy it takes to run a business like this.
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